“I’ve just embarked on a ponderous novel on the same theme [as Tender is the Night] — save that the whole setting is different as possible. I’ve gone the whole hog. My ‘hero,’ surrounded by all the blessings in the world, simply goes out to the garage and shoots himself — fifteen years after the war.”
Louis Bromfield to F. Scott Fitzgerald, April 1934
Most definitely NOT a chickenshit Ohioan.
That paragraph really is pure Percy. The industriousness described in the Good Reads article makes him more a JOB prequel (in fiction rather than poetry, obviously), and the farming … maybe JOB as well, but I was thinking of brother Mark (whom I haven’t met, but I’ll take a flyer). Or Rachel Carson.
Thanks for the tip. I’ll pick up one of those early novels.